Shawano County has not abandoned plans for a wage study, but some supervisors are questioning whether the study will change anything for employees.
On Monday, members of the Administrative Committee questioned how effective a wage study would be in the wake of the recent county budget, where supervisors could not find enough money to provide even cost-of-living increases to more than 300 employees.
The study was planned as part of a larger study that includes job titles and descriptions, which are being reviewed by county staff.
Supervisors previously have discussed having the wage study done externally. One option would be to join with other counties for a regional study and then split the costs among the participants. Shawano County has earmarked $50,000 for the study.
Supervisor Deb Noffke questioned whether it was prudent to move forward with the study, noting the County Board could not even give a 1 percent raise when it approved the budget Oct. 23.
“You’re going to shoot away all this money and find out all these people are overpaid, and all these people are underpaid,” Noffke said. “You can do some shifting, but that’s not what people want to hear. They want to hear they’re all getting an increase.”
Administrative Coordinator Tom Madsen felt that the committee needed to take a stand. He said he receives phone calls almost daily from employees and department heads asking when the study is going to be done.
“Maybe that’s what the department heads need to hear, that we can’t afford it,” Madsen said. “Why give them false hope when we can’t do it?”
Supervisor Jerry Erdmann pointed out that, despite there being no money to increase wages, something needed to be done to resolve the disparity of wages between departments. A secretary in one department could be getting $2 to $3 more an hour than a secretary in another.
“Job classifications could still go through,” Erdmann said. “If by some good fortune we do have the money down the road to make salary adjustments, at least then we’ll have some of the job duties taken care of.”
Categories
